A law to eliminate the special pensions of parliamentarians, adopted in 2015, was voted on by the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate, as special pensions are an important target in the national recovery plan.
In October 2022, the World Bank finalised the proposals for the reform of special pensions in Romania, a milestone in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan that had to be adopted by the end of this year. The institution recommended that the current special pensions be calculated based on the contributory principle.
A similar project to eliminate them was rejected by the Constitutional Court, but now the initiators say that the law would be constitutional.
Prime Minister Marcel Ciolacu said that the lawmakers’ special pensions must be eliminated, thus opening the way to eliminate all other special pensions.
“We are starting the reform of special pensions with ourselves”, the President of the Senate, Nicolae Ciuca said, adding that the reform is essential for Romania not to lose European money.
However, the opposition is sceptical about the constitutionality of the law.
The USR deputy Cristian Seidler said after the vote that the project on special pensions and the one to abolish the special pensions of lawmakers are ”just for show” so that they would later be declared unconstitutional.
Seidler claimed the entire law risks being declared unconstitutional because the initiators should have drawn up several normative acts for each category of beneficiaries.
(Cătălina Mihai | EURACTIV.ro)
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